Subject: Tourney Report? Date: Fri, 21 Nov 1997 16:11:38 -0500 (EST) From: "Robert S. Hahn" To: Frank Kusumoto Anyhow... the tale begins with the rotation out of Alliances and the inclusion of Tempest. Now, I've been a control player for as long as I remember. I think I would always be a control player as long as that is viable. So, Alliances going out of T2, taking with it Force of Will, Thawing Glaciers, Kjeldoran Outpost, Browse, Soldevi Digger, Arcane Denial, etc. and Ice Age going out with Swords to Plowshares and Icy Manipulator rather dismayed me. What was I going to play? I had written in The Duelist that Bloom and Sligh were going to be the biggest and the baddest of contenders. Now, I wrote that without access to the cardlist so of course, I didn't know about the Propaganda, the Lobotomy, the Capsize, the Chill, etc. etc. After I saw the decklist, I thought that blue was going to be the new power color, along with red which got ridiculously good stuff: Mogg Fanatic, Fireslinger, Kindle, Boil, etc. In any case, I was somewhat worried about Boil, and I thought that the most dangerous deck nonetheless was Abeyance-Bloom. Hence, I built a deck patterned after my MirvLight deck (Big Blue with black and white) to enhance creature removal with Edicts and to screw any combo-reliant decks with Lobotomy. The skeleton is something like this: 4 Counters 3 Dissipate 3 Dismiss 2 Disrupt 12 counters 4 Ophidian 2 Man O War 1 Knight of Mist 1 Air Elemental 1 Waterspout 9 creatures 2 Capsize 3 Diabolic Edict 3 Lobotomy 3 Coercion 11 discard/removal 3 Disks 35 2 Mind Stones 4 Underground River 4 Bad River 1 Swamp 10 islands 4 Quicksand SB 4 Hydroblast 1 lobotomy 1 disk 2 Power Sink 2 Terror 2 Energy Flux 3 Propaganda Something like that. In any case, I played at Neutral Ground's Monday evening tourneys with this just to see how it fared. I had no expectation of winning even one match at the Ground with this -- it was far too untested. First round -- Alex Shvartsman. Alex posted his tourney report with the Steel Curtain on the Dojo, so check it out. He was playing that deck. And before the tourney started, we were talking about T2 and he said that PropOrb is power and even showed me his decklist. When we sat down across from each other, he was a bit chagrined but as usual, was a good sport about it. In any case, he pops out a Diamond or two and drops a Propaganda. I drop a turn three Waterspout with a Mind Stone and start bashing him, while paying upkeep. He eventually drops two more Propagandas and a Pendrell Mist so i let the Djinn go with him at 4 life. I'm holding a lot of land thanks to the Spout, and I have the Mind Stone as well, such that when he eventually drops the Worb, I'm concerned but not all that devastated. Eventually, I'm pretty well locked up by all standards, but he can't do very much either. He drops a Steel Golem, which I Edict away. he drops another one, which I counter -- and a little war ensues, which he wins... on purposes on my part. I'm holding a Disk, a Lobotomy, a Capsize, and a counterspell, and didn't want to tap all that mana. Next turn, I drop the bomb: Lobotomy. He counters, which i counter back, so he says, "Okay." Well, in response to the Lobotomy, I Capsize his Winter Orb. Turns out that he's holding 3 more Winter Orbs. Out they go for the rest of the game. Without mana lock to worry about, I eventually take control, and Disk away all of his permanents besides land. I then lay an Air Elemental and win that game. Pretty close. Second game, he sides in more Grindstones, possibly more countermagic, etc. Unfortunately, he gets somewhat manascrewed so I get an untapped Disk on the table and blow away a couple of Diamonds and a propaganda. He lays a Grindstone and grinds about six cards in one shot, and lays Winter Orb at some point. I play an Energy Flux, which just wrecks his lock, and he can't really deal with it except with Capsize -- which I believe I counter. Eventually, the Ophidian madness starts going and i win with two cards (?) left in the library. Whew! I dodge that bullet, but am very impressed with Propaganda/Winter orb. Make a mental note to build a deck around the combo. Round 2: Don't recall the name, but he's playing WW Shadow/Armor. Simply put, he doesn't have a way of dealing with Satan (Ophidian). he gets some early hits in with Soltari Monks and whatnot, but my two Satans are giving me all the cards I need. He puts Empyrial Armor on a White Knight, so I take 7 or 8, then knight of Mist the threat away. All I remember is that the first game was a rather quick (for me) seize-the-controls and run away with it. Second game, he puts out THREE Soltari Monks or whatevers and bashes me down. I lay a Disk, counter his Disenchant, and blow away everything. I'm at 3 life or so. But then, i seize control. Satan does his thing, I drop an Air Elemental, and win that game fairly comfortably with 4 counterspells in hand. I didn't think he had the optimal deck, with only 1 Armageddon and some questionable choices for critter control (Repentance or Vengeance or whatever is a sorcery that kills one creature whose toughness is equal to its power -- doesn't really help against Satan). Nonetheless, I cruise on by. Round 3 -- Newbie, playing some mono-green thing. About now is the time to get manascrewed. So I do. First game, I draw one island and sit there while he pumps out elves and Rogue Elephants and Boas and whatnot. I notice that he plays VERY slowly, which is weird for a mono-green deck. In any case, I just concede the first when he gets out yet another 3/3 (Trained Armodon?) to go on to the second. The second game is strange. He gets a fairly slow start, with just an Elf and a Bird. I get a fairly good start with Satan on the table, but I have few removal and lots of non-basic lands. I draw 3 Underground Rivers, a Quicksand, a Mind Stone, and Bad River. This turns out to save me, as he drops a Choke; it doesn't bother me in the least. What does bother me is a Natural Order that gets rid of his Bird and fetches him a Rootbreaker Wurm (6/6 trample). I'm just praying for a man O War or a Capsize, and I topdeck that. Lay a Disk, gain massive card advantage, and take control of the game. Again, because he played so slowly (and he didn't know some basic cards, like Underground River or Dissipate), we don't have a lot of time for game three. Third game, because of time pressure, I go on the aggro, with Satan and Man O War and an early Waterspout. That ties up my mana, unfortunately, and he gets a Rootbreaker Wurm again via Natural Order. I don't have a way to deal with it effectively in hand, so I'm forced to sac the Man O War and the Satan in blocking for a couple turns. I draw a Capsize, though, and swiftly take control, eventually Disking everything away. With the clock ticking, I lay an Air elemental, with counters in hand, and beat him down with about 15 seconds left. I had to hurry him along this game, as he was playing VERY slowly, as if stalling. For instance, he has three forests, two cards in hand, I have seven cards, about 8 mana sources. He's playing mono-green. What is there to think about for so long? Anyway, I win that match and move on to the finals against Zvi Moskowitz, playing R/U FreneticBurnCounter. We split the prize and play for points, and he wins both games fairly easily. The Disrupts helped him immensely, as did the Pyroblasts from the sideboard. I think I got torched out the first game, and the second game, I was manascrewed to boot. Oh well! Nonetheless, that match would prove to be a forewarning. Generally pleased with my performance with a totally untuned and untested deck, I tweak it here and there and decide to play in a Gray Matter show on Long Island. About an hour before the show, I look at the Medallions and think, "Why not have fun with buyback?" and put 4 in, taking out the Disks. That version had 3 Air Elementals and 4 Ophidians. I up the counters to 12 (4 Counter, 3 Dissipate, 4 Dismiss, 1 Desertion), add 3 Whispers of the Muse, and go to 3 Capsize. I went 2-1 and dropped because i couldn't win, but again, I was impressed with the power of blue. First round -- Carl LiBassi playing Lobotomy. Carl is a new friend from Long Island (since I just moved out here) and a member of Team Powerhouse (name change forthcoming soon). We playtested together earlier and we both thought lobotomy or Sligh would be best. He chose to try Lobotomy and had to play me. The matchup was not good forhim -- he favored a lot of creature removal with reactive creatures like Man O War and Nekrataal. I have very few creatures to remove, and I have a lot more counterspells. Basically, the first game dragged on for a while, but I just have more counterspells that he does and he doesn't have enough threats. I think I Whispered my way to about seven additional cards, got down 2-3 Medallions and I think I lobotmized him twice and he conceded. Second game is where something very interesting happened. I draw, I have a lot of counters and Lobotomy. I know he has Lobotomy, so both of us sit there doing nothing for a while. Eventually, I decide to force his hand and cast something; he counters, i counter. he counters again, and I decide not to counter. On his turn, he untaps, has six mana and I have two untapped. He casts Lobotomy, which I counter. Now, he casts Ertai's Meddling on my Counterspell. Prior to the tournament, I was talking to Tony the head judge because i was thinking of siding in Ertai's Meddling against other counterdecks but was concerned about the wording of the Meddling: "When target spell is successfully cast..." By that wording, I felt that the Meddling could not counter a counterspell. Tony agreed, so i didn't put the Meddlings in the sideboard. Carl didn't know that, of course, and I couldn't be sure either -- but I went by what I thought the local head judge's ruling would be. So, the counter can't be Meddlinged and the Lobotomy fails. ANd it taps Carl out. So, next turn I Lobotomize him and take all of his Counterspells, seeing that he doesn't have anything special in hand then. the turn after, I Lobotomize him again and take something else (Man O War?). Then the game essentially belongs to me. Later, we find out that Ertai's Meddling can in fact counter a counterspell and that Bethmo has issued a ruling to that effect (?). I'm still uncertain as to how the Meddling works, but the wording on it is pretty poor. Anyhow, I advance. Second round -- 5cg, with Static Orb and Propaganda He drops an early Centaur, which is troble for my deck, and I realize the limitations of Diabolic Edict -- since he could just sac his Bird instead of the threat. He follows up with some other stuff, including a Maro, but it's the Centaur that does me in eventually after my Air Elemental gets Incinerated and flanked to death. Second game, I side in my Perishes, and that pretty much seals it. the game seems tight a lot of the time, but a Perish wipes his side of the board clean. The Static Orb ends up helping me since I can always untap two blue mana and i have 2 Medallions on the table. i eventually drop an Air Elemental for UU with 3 Medallions out, and win with many counters in hand. Third game, he sides out a lot of his green threats and sides in Man O Wars and Suq'ata Lancers. A pretty good move on his part. But an Air Elemental for UU1 is a rather nice creature, and thought it's close, I pull it out after gaining board control with mucho Medallions and Whispers with buyback. Buyback is huge. HUGE. It must be stopped at all costs, or at least planned for in some way. Third Round -- I have to play Steve O'Mahoney-Schwartz, whom I write about from time to time as one of the best players I know. And he's playing my worst matchup: R/U CounterBurn. Suffice to say that Steve's deck is the only one to out-counter mine in the entire place. He also has NO wasted cards in his deck against me. And he has Disks with more countermagic than I. Both games end pretty much the same way: I get burned to death. Now, game one, I Lobotomized him TWICE, taking his Hammers and his Whispers. Still, i couldn't overcome the Wall of Countermagic. Granted, drawing sixteen mana sources in a row against his deck could have had something to do with it, but I think his deck is just built to beat mine. So I lose there. After all this, and playing some more with tweaks here and there, I believe that blue and red are the two power colors. Blue is so far from dead that it's ridiculous. Sligh really is powerful in the new environment -- Carl beats me repeatedly with his Sligh deck, at least prior to sideboarding. Blue control at the center of any survival deck is pretty nasty -- whether it's supplemented with white for more survival, red for damage and removal, or black for removal and lobotomy, blue is really dangerous now. PropOrb is good against creature decks, yes. But I think PropGeddon is far superior -- the difficulty is making PropGeddon work, of course, but I'm sure someone is at work on it. As one result of all this enchantment/artifact based defense, Nev's Disk becomes even more important and powerful. it's the answer to just about everything ugly in the environment, and coupled with countermagic, it just rocks. The blue Medallion is pure power. Don't laugh at it as I once did. Air Elementals are awfully good creatures for two mana, and Whispers for three mana is amazing. Buyback is king. Blue buyback spells are the reason to play blue alone. Whispers is FAR superior to the Tome, though it might lag behind Browse. There's no reason not to play 4 Whispers in a heavy blue deck, imo. I haven't yet seen a good WW deck, though people tell me that they exist. I haven't seen a really good green deck either, simply because Perish wrecks it so hard. Monoblack of all flavors seems more than doable, but as yet, I haven't seen one that could overcome the wall of countermagic. So the future seems a bit unsettled. For now, however, I would agree with one player who said, "In this environment, as long as your main deck can handle most comers adequately, your sideboard can be devoted to dealing with blue and dealing with red." I think that's true. :) -The Sophist Robert S. Hahn hahn@bway.net http://www.bway.net/~hahn Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man - Polonius, to his son Laertes Hamlet, Act I, Scene III.